Media bias? Study finds that Romney has received more favorable coverage than Obama since first debate

The tone of media coverage of President Obama and Mitt Romney changed dramatically after the first presidential debate, a new study by Pew Research Center has documented.

Before the Denver debate, which voters overwhelmingly believed that Romney won, 22 percent of all stories about Obama had a positive tone, while the ones about Romney were positive only half as often.

Then things changed.

As Romney gained in the polls in the aftermath of the debate, he got substantially more favorable media coverage: 20 percent positive, 50 percent mixed and 30 percent negative. Obama’s coverage suddenly became more negative. Nearly three times as many Obama-related stories had a negative tone than a positive one: 13 percent positive, 51 percent mixed and 36 percent negative.

Overall, however, Obama still has received slightly more favorable coverage this year. The reason, Pew discovered, is that much of the TV coverage of the campaign involved polling and the daily “horse race.” Since Obama led for much of the year, much of the positive coverage reflected his advantage in the polls.

Excluding such horse-race stories, the tone of media coverage was very similar for both candidates, Pew found.

When looking at the different media types, more distinctions become clear. The so-called mainstream media maintained a pretty balanced tone in their coverage, Pew reported. But the tone tended to get more negative with blogs and social media. Facebook and Twitter posts and conversations were particularly negative — with Romney at a big disadvantage there.

Network news viewers received a different narrative about the candidates depending on when they watched. The morning shows on CBS, ABC and NBC set up a tone that favored Romney more. On the evening news shows, though, Obama was better off.

Cable coverage on Fox News was far more negative toward the president than its positive stories. Still, Pew found that MSNBC was even more one-sided: against Romney.